The horrible death of Eric Morse, the 5-year-old boy who was dropped from a CHA building in 1994, became a metaphor for the horrors of urban living.

The ages of the boy's killers, 10 and 11, compounded the tragedy, as did the fact that Eric's half-brother, Derrick Lemon, was in the 14th-floor apartment when his brother was dropped to his death. » Click to enlarge image Mary Mitchell

Derrick was 8 years old, unable to protect his younger brother from his tormenters even before the killers took him to the apartment at 3833 South Langley in the Clarence Darrow Homes.

Now, 16 years later, what has become of Derrick Lemon could be a metaphor for the horrors of ghetto parenting.

I know some of you will be offended by my word choice. But ghetto parenting is the only phrase that can describe what is going on.

Ghetto parenting is cursing around, and at, a child.

Ghetto parenting is brawling with your man or your woman in front of your child.

Ghetto parenting is letting your child roam the streets until somebody else's mother has to tell the child to go home.

Ghetto parenting is putting your child off on friends and relatives because you want to hang out in the street.

Ghetto parenting is getting so hooked on substances that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has to remove your children and place them with strangers.

This is how a child who was a victim of ghetto parenting can turn out.

Last week, the 23-year-old Lemon was found guilty of murdering Illya Glover, his aunt's 40-year-old boyfriend, in 2006.

The dead man had tried to stop Lemon from choking the aunt at a family barbecue. Lemon shot him several times.

And it gets worse.

Earlier this year, Lemon was also charged with home invasion and intimidating a witness to the murder.

I can only imagine the nightmares Lemon must have had after his brother's death, but his future was already in jeopardy before he was caught in a national glare.

In a follow-up article that was published in 1997, the Chicago Tribune reported Eric and Derrick's mother, Toni Morse, was a drug addict whose parental rights were being terminated.

"Morse's seven living children reside in foster homes, with relatives or in shelters, all having been abandoned by their mother or taken into protective custody by the state; including Eric, three tested positive for drugs at birth," according to the Tribune.

Lemon went to live with Toni Morse's father, Alvin Bush.

"It is kind of strange to me for a mother to leave her kids, period," Bush said.

According to the article, "the Morse children lived a transient life" and it wasn't clear who was supposed to be watching them that day.

While it appears that the state, which provided counseling, and Lemon's grandparents tried to redirect his fate, there's no indication that his own mother did anything other than sue the Chicago Housing Authority.

Here is a mother who failed her children in every way.

Yet, she was awarded a $2.175 million settlement from the CHA, and another $800,000 from the Digby's Detective and Security Agency Inc.

How ironic is that?

Toni Morse's lawyers argued that the blame for Eric Morse's death was shared by the CHA, the detective agency and the realty group that failed to keep the doors and windows of the vacant apartment boarded up.

But there was no advocate for Eric Morse or Derrick Lemon.

There was no one to argue that the biggest share of the blame belonged to the mother who allowed her young sons to wander around the notoriously dangerous housing project unsupervised.

No one to point out that leaving the 8-year-old to protect the 5-year-old was tantamount to neglect.

No one to say straight out that had Toni Morse fulfilled her obligation to parent her children, Eric Morse would not have ended up in that apartment.

Instead of being held accountable, Toni Morse might as well have won the lottery.

Lemon got half of the settlement. The rest of the money was split among Lemon's mother, a sister and a brother.

Yes. I blame democrats for much of this behavior. Did these types of things, and to this degree, happen 3 or more generations ago? Or was it that it never made the news?

In my opinion, I believe the parenting and family values were stronger prior to the 1960’s welfare laws. We are now into the 3rd plus generation of the welfare state, and it has bred a nightmare.

Once we started the culture of unmarried welfare moms, we set off a never ending downward spiral in values across the country. I don't think there is a way to turn it around, either. The democrats would fight every measure of reform because this is their voting base.

So true! There have always been the poor and there have always been ghettos, but never was life — then and there— as it is now. When men and women spawn kids just for the welfare money, there is a breakdown in society. When there is no strong family structure, trouble looms. And for what? To get votes?

20
posted on 07/08/2010 8:38:04 PM PDT
by Exit148
(Loose Change Club Founder. Save your pennies for the next Freepathon. A little goes a long way!)

This is what happens when the government hands out checks to babies for making babies, and gives them food stamps, ADC and SSI to take care of them, all the while most of the money goes to booze and casinos.

21
posted on 07/08/2010 8:38:13 PM PDT
by E. Pluribus Unum
("The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law." -- Aristotle)

It isn’t just Ghetto parenting that is questionable. There is some parenting going on in the rural regions of our country that is not much different for what she describes. There is drug use, alcoholism, abuse and other related issues that affect white and black children all over this country, not just the ghetto.

It isnt just Ghetto parenting that is questionable. There is some parenting going on in the rural regions of our country that is not much different for what she describes. There is drug use, alcoholism, abuse and other related issues that affect white and black children all over this country, not just the ghetto.

Quite true.It happens everywhere. Just read about the subculture in England, for example. The behaviors and attitudes are the same. But one thing it does have in common, wherever it occurs, is that is subsidized, and encouraged, by the government. If it wasn't subsidized, it wouldn't happen.

Look around and think about the fact that the yobs you see are going to be in charge in another few decades. Think about it.

I volunteer in our church youth group with middle school kids, and I do think about it. We go down to the trailer parks and bring the kids to church. The stories are gut-wrenching. All you can do is pray for them.

More Americans ought to do the same, because , if they are the future, then our country is in serious trouble.

Up until the late 1960 and early 1970 there was a heavy price (usually paid by the girl) for out of wedlock sex, especially if they got pregnant.

Society had given girls a very strong defense to say “no” to an over eager boy, and if the boy needed more persuasion the girls father or older brothers were there to enforce the “no”.

I am not saying teens did not have sex, some did, but a overwhelming majority did not (the proof is the lack of out of wedlock children like we have today). Remember, back then, abortions were illegal.

If a girl got pregnant one of the first thing to happen she was taken out of school. The child was put up for adoption.

The sexual revolution, abortions, the pill have removed the shield young girls once had to say “no” and have the boy accept it.

The message today is you are a prude if you don't engage in sex with any and all, the proof is the out of control STD in our young people today.

Society has rules of behavior that may seem out of touch but were developed so that the society would survive. We have tossed many of those rules aside. The question is are the new rules going to save our society?

(Like all subjects, this is more complicated than can be posted here. These are just my observations.)

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